Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Faith

Our Belief in God

by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

Before we begin to answer what it means to believe
it may be useful to explain that Faith is not some strange experience professed
by some people and denied by others. Faith is the most common commodity of the
human race. As I never tire repeating, we start to believe the moment we are
born. We trust father and mother; we accept their least signs of communication.

As we go through life, our lives are filled
with trust in people and acceptance of their word like a social atmosphere without
which we would suffocate. Who would ever read a book unless he believed in its
author? Hence the importance and I hope you were not surprised when I mentioned
that a lot of books today though ostensibly approved by ecclesiastical authority
are not necessarily the teaching of the Church.

Who would ever buy an article of clothing or
furniture, who would ever sit down to a meal he had not personally prepared?
I should add that most of my meals while Im in Chicago I prepare myself. Who
would go to school or listen to a lecture or patiently sit through a conference.
Who would ever marry another person, who would sign a contract or open a friendship
or enter the priesthood or the convent. In other word, what would we do unless
we trusted people and their word and believed in their promises; what would
we do?

We would stifle as human beings because social
life would become impossible and the least interchange between person and person,
even the briefest conversation would be irrational. Why talk unless the one
I am speaking to believes me. Why listen unless the one I am hearing can be
trusted. Why all of this? Because the human heart is made to believe and the
human mind is made to accept people and their word in trustful confidence. So
true is this that once our confidence has been cruelly betrayed something sacred
breaks in our spirit and life becomes, as it has for all of you, a torture chamber
of agony from which it seeks, even at the cost of self destruction to escape.
As a woman just told me an hour or so before I left for Cincinnati, she has
been betrayed; she wants to die and she wants to take her own life.

All of this though it may sound preliminary
I think is worth saying to protect us from making the mistake of supposing that
there are such people as unbelievers. There are no unbelievers except in mental
institutions. It is part of rational man as a social being to believe. In fact
it is Faith that makes society. The only difference is in the way people believe,
or in whom. There is no question of not believing and living rationally with
others.

With this as a background for our reflections
suppose we change our original question to read, What does it mean to believe
in God? That after all is the hub of the problem and the only issue that deserves
prayerful analysis. It is in this context that the awful question posed by Saint
John should haunt us. How is it he asks that you who are so ready to believe
in men are so slow to believe in God? How indeed! How is it that credulous man
who is so ready to believe in the most bizarre television statements or the
most atrocious editorials in newspapers? How is it that this same credulous
man who thanks to the billions spent in advertising will buy what he does not
need with money that he does not have.

How is it that this same credulous man can suddenly
become so skeptical when God speaks and when the message He communicates is
His own Divine Wisdom? Lets never apologize, least of all to our own minds
for believing. Whatever the reason for this inconsistency it can not be that
man is not sufficiently credulous. Might it not be that what God asks us to
believe is so demanding and the cost to our generosity so great. It is not Faith
we fear but the demands of Faith. Suppose then, and that was again introduction,
let me then try to answer the topical question in three parts by saying first
that to believe in God means to realize that He has spoken. It means secondly
to believe in God as an acceptance of His mysteries. We believe in Him when
we accept the mysteries He revealed and to believe in God means to do what the
Faith demands as the price of our believing. First then, to believe in God means
realizing that God has spoken.

As we look at the shambles of Faith in the Western
world today, and they are shambles; if sometimes what I say and sometimes when
I name names I may seem to be, well, too explicit. No language I can use can
describe the massive loss of Faith in the church today. So we are tempted to
explain what happened, why have so many Catholics, so well educated, suddenly
stopped believing. No one but God knows the full answer, but one reason it seems
to me is that in todays agnostic climate only a realized Faith can be trusted
to endure.

What do we mean by realized Faith? By such a
Faith I mean first of all and in its foundation a well-grounded conviction that
what I believe makes sense. That it is not a mirage, that I have reasons for
being a Christian and a Catholic; reasons that satisfy my mind as credible.
Its not enough to say I believe; I must as far as my mind can understand know
why I believe, because a lot of people are believing in a lot of strange things.
Why do I believe?

As we read through the Gospels, we are perhaps
all be thee not scandalized but at least surprised at all the miracles Christ
worked, kind of nice we think to have them there. It was rather generous of
Christ to work miracles, how thoughtful of Him that we pass on as we may feel
to something more substantive to meditate on. All those healings of the blind
and deaf mutes, all those cures of the paralyzed, all those exorcisms of the
possessed and those dramatic resurrections from the dead.

As we read the passion narratives and then see
how after the third day, Christ having been crucified, rose from the dead, we
are maybe surprised that God our Savior should have done it just this way. We
may be surprised that we change the accent, we may be surprised, but Saint Paul
tells us why it happened, oh it didnt happen, it was done just that way. Unless
Christ be risen from the dead youre Faith and mine is vain and we are still
in our sins.

This can mean several things, but it means before
everything, that unless Christ had worked miracles in His public life, which
had culminated in raising Himself by His own power from the dead, the objective
grounds of our Faith would not be there. We would not have real reasons; thats
why I use the term realized Faith for believing. Dont misunderstand me, people
can believe without reasons, can they ever, can they ever.

There is nothing so strange or incredible; in
fact, physiologists say that some people have a special proneness to believe
the incredible. So it is not that we could not believe. If Christ had not worked
these miracles, the point is we would not have objective grounds for believing.
So we could believe, subjectively, as 500,000,000 Muslims believe in Mohammed
who was never crucified and never rose from the dead. Or as millions of confirmed
Marxists believe in Karl Marx who spent most of his life reading books in libraries
and who most certainly never came back to life after he died in 1883.

In order to provide for the
ongoing foundation of our Faith to give it credibility, Christ not only worked
miracles but, and this is where all of us come in, continues working miracles
even physical ones as we read in the lives of the saints or can witness today
at places like Lourdes. But more frequently, and for us much more pertinently,
He works miracles in the mobile order of suffering patiently endured for the
love of Christ over a long period of years of persecution undergone and martyrdom
for Faith in Christ, as thousands of our fellow Catholics have experienced;
for example in the Communist prisons of Hungry and China.

Of total commitment to Faith in Christ in the
practice of the Evangelical councils in poverty, celibacy and obedience in religious
life religiously lived out under the guidance of the Church; that adverb is
crucial, religious life religiously lived out.

Of complete fidelity of one man and one woman
loyal to each other in spite of the erotic mania all around them, these if you
please the Church calls miracles in the mobile order and the faithful need to
see this to continue making and keeping their Faith credible.

Thats why religious life in the Catholic Church
is absolutely necessary for the well-being of the Church so that the faithful
may see sanctity and nothing else will do. All of these are part of the basic
realization that God must have spoken in the person of Christ and even now speaks
through His Church. Why, because how otherwise explain the marvels of power
and the signs of the supernatural we need superhuman strength which those who
accept the Faith are able to practice.

God can not contradict Himself. What those who
believe in Him claim He said must have been said by Him otherwise why did He,
better, why does He so obviously confirm His message in those who believe in
Him, by working so many wonders of body and spirit through those, and in those,
and by those who believe in His name and we are suppose to be, the those.

Is it any wonder the Faith of millions has been
shaken? They need to see especially the miracle of sanctity. In order to confirm
them in the fact of the same Jesus who is followed by those who believe in Him
works in those who believe things that flesh and blood can not achieve but are
possible only by His grace.

Religious are meant to be the moral miracle,
which the Church needs to sustain the Faith of the faithful in every age.

Thats part one.

We are asking what does it mean to believe in
God. We answer; it means to accept the mysteries of God. If as we have just
seen, the rational basis of Faith is the realization that God has spoken, the
realization short of strengthened and confirmed for the mind by seeing marvels
of grace in the Church today. If thats the rational basis then the substance
of Faith is the acceptance of Gods mysteries.

What are these mysteries? They are ultimately
the mystery of Gods Trinity and the corresponding mystery of His Incarnation.
All the mysteries of the Faith are locked up finally in those two.

The first, the Trinity, is the goal of our existence
to be possessed by us in the beatific eternity and the second is the means of
reaching that goal through Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But if these are
the mysteries and they include, as is clear, all the truths of revelation like
the church and the sacraments, the life of grace and the advocacy of humble
prayer, what do we mean by calling them mysteries? So whats a mystery?

Whats a mystery? A mystery is mysterious which
is not an evasion. They are mysterious since though we accept them on grounds
that are consistent with reason, thats making our Faith realized. Once accepted
they cannot be comprehended by the human mind and surpass the capacity of reason
to fully understand why they are true. The believing mind simply says, I know
they must be true because God revealed them, and only He knows why there have
to be three persons in one God. Notice, have to be. There cannot be a God
unless He has three persons, two persons no God, one person no God, three persons,
thats God.

Why there are two natures in Christ. Why the
sacraments, which Christ administers in His church, are the divinely instituted
channels of His saving grace to a sinful mankind; only He, God fully understands
why. But there is more then theology in knowing that Faith is the acceptance
of mystery. There is also good Christian common sense. It will preserve the
believer, thats us, not from examining the Faith or reflecting on it, or trying
to make it as intelligible as we can. But it will preserve us from trying to
do the impossible and racking our minds and nerves in attempting to comprehend
how a few words of priestly consecration can change the common elements of bread
and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

Now a small part of the crisis in todays Christianity
is the failure on the part of intelligent believers to know when to stop asking
questions of God. Which means putting God on trial before the bar of human reason,
as much as to tell Him, Lord I am willing to believe what you say, but only
in so far as I can understand. As though Faith were not what it is. The humble
obedience of a created mind, humbly submitting its ability to understand, before
the uncreated mind of the Lord of the universe. He wants this humble submission
from His creatures and will be satisfied with nothing less. So we dont stop
thinking but we do know when to stop telling God, Lord I cannot understand,
I am tempted to disbelieve.

You left it up to me, your very kind, to talk
about what ever I wished in this conference which turned out to be, or I hope
will turn out to be three days.

I am going to concentrate on Faith. It is awfully,
I mean it is terribly important, not only that we might remain firm in the Faith,
but especially that some people, and I would say with very special emphasis
in Gods providence, you, might pray and sacrifice to strengthen, through Gods
grace which you can obtain, the Faith especially in this Order of bishops, priests
and religious.

So much then for what does it mean to believe.
It means to accept Gods mysteries to know when to stop allowing the mind to
start asking God the questions He does not want to answer.

Finally, to believe in God means practicing
what we believe. It was not a casual remark that Christ made when he gave the
last instructions to His disciples before He ascended into Heaven.

Now as you know, any single passage from the
Gospels, especially the words of the Savior, every single passage has layer
upon layer of meaning. And I suppose that the first impression from reflecting
on the last instruction of Christ is to stress the apostolic mandate, which
Christ gave to the disciples, through them to their successors and to all Christians.
He told them to go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to all nations.
Teaching them as Matthew says, quoting the Savior, to observe all the commandments
I have given you.

Well no doubt, the apostolic implication is
clear but what needs to be stressed, thats why Im stressing it, is the word
commandments. I dont know where some people ever got the idea that the function
of Faith is to believe period. As though theres any great problem in accepting
that there are three persons in the Trinity or two natures in Christ or the
Real Presence. Of course it requires humility of mind but frankly nobody can
understand the Trinity or the Incarnation or the Real Presence except God. But
thats only the beginning of our Faith. The Faith has finality, the finality
is to do.

Christ came on earth to reveal mysteries that
were hidden from the foundation of the world, true enough. But Christ was no
mere philosopher. His purpose in giving us these mysteries was not only, or
what is so crucial, finally, which means purposefully that we might think about
them, talk about them and give lectures or write books about their hidden and
abstruse theological implications. He revealed these mysteries that those who
believe might put them into practice. There is such a thing as believing in
the Trinity; there is such a thing as living the Trinity.

It is in doing what God has revealed that authentic
Christianity is identified which being interpreted says that the Faith is not
only, though it is surely that, a submission of the mind to Gods revealed truth.
It is also the surrender of the will to Gods revealed commands.

Gnosticism, a big word which is another big word, cerebral Christianity,
invaded the Church as early as the first century. It means, as Im sure you
know, that type of Christianity which claims that Christianity stops in the
mind with gnosis, which is the Greek for knowledge. Who is a Christian, and
it is immaterial what he does. Is this ever the most rampant heresy in our day!

One of the main reasons for the gospel of Saint
John, way back at the turn of the first century, was to combat that heresy.
It is the heresy of intellection, which defines the Christian Faith in terms
of mental speculation? The Church today is being suffocated with books. Latter
day Gnosticism is still with us. It claims that a person is saved by what he
knows rather then by what he does.

True Christianity does not deny the value of
reflective knowledge of the Faith nor of intelligence, prayerful even theological
reflection. But it insists that this is not enough. The Faith must not only
be reflected upon, it must be lived. It must be exercised in the practice of
the virtues of charity for God shown in loving even ones enemies. Its so easy
to tell God, I love you; its so hard to accept an unlovable person who comes
to me for kindness.

Of trust in God shown in accepting lifes reverses
have so many gifts from a loving providence that we and other people make mistakes
that God never does. That we and others sin, that God never sins. That God uses
our mistakes and sins, the mistakes of other people and their sins as part of
His infinitely wise providence  does this ever take Faith and Faith that does
not stop with a printed page.

Of struggle with ones own weaknesses. Lord
you could have made me so many things. There are so many wonderful people I
know; the saints Ive read about; Lord, dear Lord why did you make me?

And of doing all of this so joyfully. Let me
change the accent, and of doing so joyfully because we know, that is, we believe,
God knows that those who persevere to the end will be saved. Persevering in
doing what they believe.

Conference Transcription from a retreat that Fr. Hardon
gave to the Handmaids of the Precious Blood